He made his way through the small crowd to the door, thought twice about a goodbye speech, and then hobbled back to Susie.
* * *
After he was home in his chair, down to his boxer shorts with a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream in one hand and Jim Beam on the rocks in the other, Harry turned on the television to catch up on life outside of work. The set took a full half-minute before it actually showed a picture, but when it finally did, Shelly Cervantes was on the screen. She had a faint green glow to her skin, but she was just as stunning as ever. She was a reporter covering the Strawberries story, and Harry had a thing for her.
You have a thing for every girl you meet, don't you Harry?
He had actually spoken with her in interviews twice since he was on the case, but he had never managed to talk to her beyond work. Right now, she was reporting in a shopping mall where they were selling Strawberries merchandise at a Spencer's Gifts. There were coffee mugs, t-shirts, and strawberry shaped candies with a bloody knife printed on the box. Harry had noticed more and more of this kind of thing popping up. There was even a book coming out soon, though he didn't know how a book would work since there was no ending yet. He reached up and turned the sound all the way down.
Shelly was looking right at him, lips puckered. As her mouth moved silently on the screen, Harry imagined that she was talking to him. She wanted him to put down his ice cream and take off his boxer shorts. It seemed Harry had been a bad, bad boy, and he needed punishing.
TEN
Shelly had always been capable of putting her on-camera persona on autopilot, so while she smiled her big smile and delivered another snippet of gossip to the masses, in her mind, she was imagining herself in Vegas, playing poker with Bon Jovi and sipping sangria. Her fantasies were basically the same each time, with only the hot, eighties rock star ever changing.
She rarely failed to pay attention to her job, but she was sick and tired of reporting the same useless information every hour. She gave reports on graffiti in the shape of strawberries. Strawberries on shirts. Strawberries on hats. Sales on plush toys shaped like strawberries. Right now, she was getting ready to report on a strawberry cupcake that was selling like gangbusters at a local bakery.
At the moment, Strawberries was the only news story that mattered. Everything else, from Middle East bombings to celebrity weddings, was pushed into throwaway segments or exiled to the ticker. Shelly had to jet all over the country just to get fluff pieces to fill the twenty-four-hour news day. Mostly though, she was reporting that there was nothing to report.
Until recently, Shelly Cervantes was just a no-name woman reporting on small time news. Her segments were often aired well after 10 p.m., and she wasn't getting noticed by anyone that mattered. Therefore, it was a stroke of pure luck that both of the network's main correspondents were overseas when the news of a serial killer began making waves. It was also luck that she just happened to be passing by her boss's door just as he was about to start pulling his hair out looking for replacement options. Truth was, she was only even in the building because she had forgotten her cell phone the night before.
Now her face was on every screen in America at any given time of day. If she wasn't live, her reports were being re-run. The irony was that she was still reporting trash stories; they just happened to be deemed important. Her career was propelling to unimaginable heights, and it was draining her.
All of the excitement and pressure was compounding the fact that Shelly had a secret.
She actually knew the identity of the killer.
She knew who Strawberries was, and where he came from, but she wouldn't tell a soul.
Not yet.
She was nobody before, and now she had gotten a taste of being somebody. Even though she felt so exhausted she might drop at any moment, she just wanted more. She couldn't imagine stopping now, and if she could find Strawberries herself and get an interview, her place in the great halls of journalism history would be cemented.
She craved the spotlight. She had always wanted to be a journalist. From the moment she was old enough to understand what the news was, she wanted to report it. Now though, she wanted something else. She wanted the glamour of celebrity, and she saw no reason why she couldn't have both. She dreamed of being one of those few reporters in the world known by just their first names.
Katie. Connie. Shelly.
The only way that was ever going to happen was if she kept her secret and found Strawberries on her own. Law enforcement seemed to be twiddling their thumbs, so all she had to do was bide her time. At this point, she had held onto the information for so long that she would probably face criminal charges if she didn't play it just right.
Shelly had first met Strawberries nearly two years earlier, though she didn't know him by that name then. She had just started at the network, and had only done a handful of small location reports. Then, her boss had put her on what was considered a garbage story at the time, but it was still the first time Shelly was going to be able to do some actual investigating. Even if the story didn't matter, she was determined then to do the best job she could.
The assignment was to cover a scaling back in the number of residents at the Lincoln Psychiatric Hospital; one of the largest facilities for the mentally ill in the region. The economy had hit places like Lincoln hard, and their funding was drying up. They had also lost the support of several rich, but anonymous, donors. Lincoln was forced to release many of their patients to keep their doors open. They had been quick to assure the public that they would not be releasing anyone that was a danger to the world at large. All of the patients would have been screened and deemed fit to re-enter society.
Shelly had started by interviewing one of the head doctors, Earl G. Lyst. Her first question for him was, “If the patients to be released were deemed ready to re-enter society, why haven't they been released any time prior.” Dr. Lyst had halted the interview right then, and Shelly was left pissing in the wind. She had not yet learned the journalistic art of leading questions.
At that point, Shelly's only option was to wander the facility and find the story. Her boss was already going to be angry that she botched the interview.
She had found a nurse to give her a tour, and the entire place had a real Cuckoo's Nest vibe to it. White walls, white clothes–the whole bit. After getting some establishing shots, she got the nurse to point out some potential patients she could interview. She requested anyone that would be released, and was at least a little camera friendly.
Her first try was an older man named Stanley. During that interview, Stanley would repeat every question that Shelly asked right back to her, and gave no answers.
Her second interview was a woman named Darla. She was in her twenties. Her hair looked like she had cut it herself with child safety scissors. She had been admitted twelve years prior for an acute anxiety disorder that prevented her from most interaction with other human beings. She was so scared of Shelly that she turned to the wall and had a quiet conversation with an electric outlet. Clearly, the nurse didn't understand the meaning of camera friendly.
Her last attempt at an interview was a quiet man sitting at a table with his back to her. The nurse told her that his name was Robert.
Shelly pulled over a plastic chair from nearby and set it across the table from Robert. She cleared her throat and he turned slowly around to face her. He smiled then, his grin emerging slowly, and as it extended across his face, Shelly got the suspicion that it was extending a bit too far. She thought that maybe it would just keep right on going if the man decided not to stop it.
“Ask your questions. Any questions,” he said to her with little fanfare.
“OK,” Shelly began, looking him in the eyes. The grin had dissipated, but its ghost could still be felt on her corneas. “You're scheduled to be released in a few days, are you excited?”
She had begun the previous two interviews with this same question, and was amazed at how difficult a question it had turned out to be.
<
br /> “Excited or not, I will still be released. I didn't choose to leave, and I didn't choose to stay. Someone is always making my choices for me.”
“But you must be happy that you're going to get to see the outside world again, and everything that changed since you've been in here.”
“I never really got to see much of the world before I came to this place, so I don't think that I'll notice what has changed when I see it.”
“When did you get put in here? Or was it voluntary?”
Robert smiled again, but this time it didn't seem a smile of joy. Shelly realized that his first smile hadn't been joyful either. This one seemed a smile of anger, while the first was one of simple recognition. She wondered if he had a smile for every occasion.
“Someone else made that choice for me too. I don't remember when. I was a boy, now I am a man. You do the math and I'll give you a treat.”
She didn't know what Robert meant by that. A chill had risen up her spine. She wanted to avert her eyes from his, but he had her locked.
“Do you remember why someone put you here as a boy?” she asked.
Robert didn't speak right away, but instead glanced up toward the ceiling. Just his eyes moved upward, his face remained still. His eyes rolled so far back into his head that Shelly could see the red, root-like veins reach up from his bottom lid. As she got lost following the paths of those veins, his eyes suddenly popped back down, looking directly into hers.
“When I was put here, I don't believe my memory had yet begun,” Robert spoke in a deep tone. “Now that I have considered it, however, I suppose it was hatred.”
“Someone that hated you put you here?”
“Someone that I hated put me here. But, I don't do that anymore. Hate. Now I love. A man needs to love.”
Robert sat back in his chair, and for the first time, Shelly noticed that he was holding something in his hand. It looked like a crumpled piece of paper, but she couldn't be sure.
A soft bell rang behind her. Most of the patients began to wander like drones into a line in front of a small room in the back. Were they serious?
It was medication time, and Shelly couldn't believe what she was seeing. Never did she imagine that this process actually happened the way it did in the movies. Robert stood as well, though he didn't stop looking at her. He didn't say another word, but he dropped what he was holding on the table in front of her. He broke his stare as he joined the others in line; just another patient.
She felt cold inside, like a wind had flown up through her toes and back out of her ears. That was enough. That was all it took for Shelly to become curious about this man Robert. She had to know his story.
She looked down at what Robert had left her. Was this the treat he had promised? It wasn't a piece of regular paper, like she had thought, but rather a napkin bunched up like it had been squeezed in his hand for days. It was so damp from sweat that she had to unravel the napkin carefully. When she finally had it unfolded, she laid it flat on the table.
There, drawn in red crayon and slightly smeared from the moisture, was a strawberry.
ELEVEN
The cab driver made no endeavor to conceal the fact that he was watching her in the rearview mirror. Sylvia wanted to cover her nose to drown out the patchouli stench in the air, but she wanted more to cover her chest from his prying eyes. She hated the smell, she hated the unintelligible music coming from the speakers, but most of all, she hated that she felt like a racist for hating those things. It pissed her off when stereotypes were true because it always made her feel bad about herself.
Finally, she said fuck it and let her arms drop. She was wearing a bra, albeit slightly see through, and if she could brighten this man's day, then why not. She kept her own eyes fixed on her window, watching the world fly by, each person and street lamp leaving a trail as her vision blurred.
What was his name again?
Bill!
She committed his name to memory even though she was never going to see the guy again. In her mind, it was better to remember the name than to have slept with a man she didn't know. That was something that Melissa was able to do that Sylvia could not. Melissa's job and the dalliances in her personal life were handled the same. She referred to the men that she dated simply as non-paying customers.
Sylvia could never do that. She was fine with forgetting about the sex she was paid for, but when she was with a man outside of work, she always felt connected in some way. Not necessarily because she wanted to see them again, or know them on a personal level, but because she needed to have a solid memory of the event. She needed to know that it happened and with whom, otherwise she felt guilt deep inside her gut. It actually made her feel physically ill sometimes, and this was one of those times. As she focused on the blurred lines outside the cab window, her eyes began to glaze and a rumble began in her belly. Luckily, her apartment was only a few more blocks away.
* * *
When she shut the door of her apartment, Sylvia felt relief. She was safe, and everything else that had transpired in her entire life previous to this moment was now locked behind that door.
Her first thought was of sleep. She wanted to feel her own blankets around her and bury her face in her goose down pillow, letting the coolness of it tingle her cheeks into Slumberland. Yet, she knew this wasn't going to happen as she could never go back to sleep after she had awoken, regardless of how long she had slept. Her day had begun, and there was nothing she could do to change that. She could, however, take a shower, shave her legs, and get into some fresh clothes.
As the water warmed, she stood naked in front of the mirror and examined herself. Her body was not quite what she wished it were. She had always thought her hips too wide and her nipples slightly too low on her breasts. She had a small, half-inch, scar just above her pubic mound that she'd gotten while ice-skating as a child. It was barely noticeable, but she always knew it was there.
She knew there was nothing wrong with her. She was fucking hot. Why did she always do this when she saw herself? Is this what every person did? Was she the only person that didn't feel a connection to her own skin?
She watched as steam from the shower began to fog the mirror, and as the fog crept upward, she watched her body slowly disappear in its haze. She saw the haven between her legs get swallowed by the blur, and just as that little scar vanished, she snapped back to her present reality and got in the shower.
When she had dried her body, put her hair up in a towel, donned fresh underwear, made some coffee, and grabbed her laptop, she was finally able to sit in her comfy chair and relax. Her warm body sank into the cushion as she pressed the power button on the computer. As she sipped her coffee, it booted up with the speed of a thousand baby slugs, reminding Sylvia again that she needed to get a new one. Why could she never find any time?
As she opened the web browser, she finished the last of her coffee and set the mug down on the side table. The first story was another about this serial killer that she'd been reading about every time she logged in for the last few months. They called him Strawberries, which was absurd. How could they give such a sweet name to such a horrible person? The story was about the latest murder, a motel employee, who had been cut to bits.
Sylvia only ever read the first few lines of the stories because the rest always made her sick. The reports always speculated and drew facts out of thin air. They were turning a killer into a folk hero. A few days ago, she had seen a trampy looking girl wearing a t-shirt with a strawberry dripping blood off it. The girl had tied the shirt in a knot at her side so that her midriff showed, as if to say, I support brutal murder, but I'm still a slut.
She had seen the spray painted strawberries on road signs and sidewalks, and it made Sylvia shudder. She thought of herself as an open-minded individual. She could laugh at racist jokes, and even found rape and dead baby jokes funny. She was not the type to judge people on anything they did or how they lived, but she just couldn't wrap her brain around this craze. So many murder
s had been committed, and the story had been going for so long, that people had forgotten their horror and made a fad. Instead of revulsion, they had turned to consumerism.
Long story short, she really wanted to slap that bitch with the t-shirt.
She closed her laptop and laid it on the floor. Part of her wanted another cup of coffee, while the other didn't want to move an inch from her chair. Those two thoughts fought like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots in her mind, but before a winner could be declared there was a rap-rap-rapping at her chamber door.
She had assumed that Melissa would come calling, but she never expected it to be this early in the day. When she opened the door, Sylvia could see that this was not early for Melissa, this was actually very, very late for her.
“Your face is prettier than mine,” Melissa declared.
“Come in then. Take your shoes off first because it looks like you have some shit on them. I'll get you some coffee.”
“This is the mud of the rich I'll have you know! You would be better for it if it were on your floor.”
“The rich, huh? So can I take it that last night's job went well?”
“Yes, they were fine gentlemen. The cuisine was decadent, and the libations danced on my tongue,” Melissa said in a singing voice as she plopped into Sylvia's favorite chair, her bag resting on her stomach.
“Well from the sound of you, they just stopped dancing about ten minutes ago.” Sylvia set a mug of coffee down on the side table. She moved the laptop under the table with her foot so that Melissa wouldn't mess with it. She would always change Sylvia's home page to some freaky porn or other annoying site.
“Nonsense, I have brought some home with me.” Melissa proclaimed with a sparkle in her eye. She sat up quickly and reached into her bag. First, she began to pull out crumpled stacks of cash and toss them on the table and floor with no regard. She had obviously had a good night with the take that littered Sylvia's floor. After a few more bills, Melissa brought out an entire bottle of champagne.
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